By comparison;

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HASKINS & SELLS
CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS
NEW YORK SAN FRANCISCO
CHICAGO LOS ANGELES
DETROIT BULLETIN SEATTLE
ST. LOUIS DENVER
CLEVELAND ATLANTA
BALTIMORE WATERTOWN
PITTSBURGH LONDON
VOL. I - NEW YORK, AUGUST 15, 1918 No. 6
By Comparison
ONE finds it difficult to develop much
enthusiasm for anything during these
summer days. They are filled with humid­ity,
dullness, and a longing for the cool
breezes of the country or seashore. It is a
time for holiday and vacation.
Society women who have worked faith­fully
for the Red Cross all winter are find­ing
it difficult to forego their perennial
summer sojourn out of town. There is,
by common report, in some places, a scarc­ity
of workers so great as to threaten the
continuation of the activities during the
summer.
The great struggle across the water re­spects
not vacations. It goes on regardless
of heat. The scene of the present fighting
is in north latitude about forty-nine de­grees.
True, this is equivalent to Quebec on
the east side and Vancouver on the west
side of North America, but it must not be
forgotten that Northwestern Europe is
warmed by a spur of the Gulf Stream which
physiographers call the North Atlantic
West Wind Drift. Paris often becomes as
uncomfortable from heat in the summer as
New York City.
There is nothing cool about the uniform
of a soldier. There is nothing cool about a
gun-pit when the gun is in action. There is
nothing especially attractive about facing
the hordes which Germany is pouring into
the hell-hole on the western front. Yet the
draft army of 1917 was organized with
only here and there a murmur from a con­scientious
objector. This, as compared
with the draft riots of 1861 during which
property in the city of New York to the
extent of a million dollars is said to have
been destroyed.
The men who have gone to the other side
have gone with enthusiasm. One reads
everywhere of the spirit displayed on all
sides. Eagerness and determination to win
overshadow fear of injury, of the surgeon's
knife, of long days of suffering in hospitals,
of death. Already large history has been
written of the deeds of bravery performed
by our troops—always, we are told, with
the same dash and energy.
We complain of the heat and lack of en­thusiasm.
Is it any cooler in France? Is
it any less difficult to cheer one's entrance
into the "valley of death"? When we need
fortitude to bear the burdens which the hot
weather brings us we have but to compare
our lot with the lot of our men on the other
side.
It is true we have heat. It is true we lack
enthusiasm. But we still have all the com­forts
which modern civilization can give
us. Our pleasures have really been very
little curtailed. We have none of the dis­comforts
of an army in the field. We are
safe from the assaults of the enemy. Com­parisons
may be odious. We need them
occasionally to make us appreciate our many
blessings.
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